Friday, April 27, 2007

Having stayed in the heart of India, Madhya Pradesh, for over two years (been visiting right form my childhood) and travelling quite extensively all over the state, I find this wonderful advertisement for tourism in MP all the more appealing.

So far have been to Jabalpur, Bilaspur (then MP), Bhopal, Indore, Ratlam, Sehore, Bhimbetka, Maihar, Bhojpur, Pachmarhi, Sanchi and of course, Khajuraho (twice over). Enjoy the multi-splendours of Madhya Pradesh in this bioscope of an ad.

Speaking of bioscopes, there is a documentary on The Bioscopewallah by Prashant Kadam. I've heard a lot about the film but haven't watched it yet.

Update:(June 28, 2007) The popularity of the aforementioned TVC has led to a print campaign which essentially showcases the ingredients of the TVC in a comic strip format (with a few additional places added):[Click on images for a larger view]

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

The other day while returning from work an ambulance was overtaking our office bus, when I noticed it, an extra long domain name - www.kapoormedicalandambulanceservices.com - proudly displayed on the side of the vehicle. Why would anyone go for such a long domain name?

A little googling and I found that there are many much much longer, but most of them are just for the heck of it. Long domain names don't make good business sense as they are harder to remember and are more prone to errors when someone types them out on a browser's address bar. The same also applies for this blog. But when I register my own domain name (don't know when) will try to keep it short and simple (if that's available).

Monday, April 23, 2007

She is touted as the world's most beautiful news anchor. She's a stunner, no doubts about that. Pity, I don't understand French.

Melissa Theuriau has been ranked 46 in AskMen.com's 2007 edition of the Top 99 Most Desirable Women and is also in the race for FHM's 100 Sexiest Women in the World 2007. Her bio and what's being written about her gives the impression that she is an accomplished journalist. But if it is the first impression that counts, she's at least 8.5/10.

Melissa's even got a site on her and her videos and photos are all over the place. Especially ones where she's seen frolicking topless at a beach. A search for her name on Google yields 834,000 results and she's already a victim of cybersquatting. And she's only 28. Beauty does take you places, where brains alone might not suffice.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Cricket is a beautiful game, especially the longer five-day version. But earning a livelihood does no longer allow me the privilege of watching a Test in total. I cannot even watch a One-Day if it goes on till late in the night (haven't watched a single Twenty20 match till date). There are some extraordinary cricketers who add more beauty to this beautiful game. Brian Charles Lara is one such cricketer.

In an anti-climax of a climactic career, often as the lone ranger, he was run out for a lowly 18 in his last international appearance. But that wouldn't take away any credit from the man and his abilities. Often accused of being a selfish player, like another contemporary great Sachin Tendulkar, Lara amassed a lot of records. Some of which will take a long while to break.

Often during my school and college years, friends would call up at odd hours and ask me to turn on the TV to watch Lara play. And I religiously did, because it was a real pleasure watching the master in action. But that magic was waning. And he was right to rest his bat.

Many feel that Sachin should also follow Lara's act (and also Inzamam's, but Pakistani cricketers have a reputation of coming out of retirement), but India's injury-ridden-and-fickle-form sensation still has a few years left in him, so does Saurav Ganguly. But Ganguly is not at the same level as Sachin and Lara.

Lara should now focus on grooming talent for West Indies, where the game is dying a slow death, and ensuring that he is not the last cricketing great to emerge out of the amalgamation of islands.

Now I'll have to watch archival footage of the Prince in play to say "Lara, kya hain mara!"

Thursday, April 19, 2007

There was a time when we looked at photographs of Nike, Adidas and Reebok and wondered about the day when we'll get a pair for ourselves. We also heard stories about the exploitative nature of these expensive shore companies. Our initial years were spent with feet adorned in Bubblegummers, and then we graduated to Power. The brand was first launched in 1972. In between for the white uniform day in school there was the all time favourite tennis canvas shoes.

Two Power ads, two models. Marc Robinson and Milind Soman (It looks like him).

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Preparation1. Clean and wash the brains.2. Boil them with three cups of water salt, turmeric powder and red chilli powder.3. Boil them on a medium flame for 10 to 12 minutes or till tender.4. Remove the thin membrane.5. Cut each brain into four pieces.6. Lightly melt butter in a non-stick pan and saute the pieces on a medium flame.7. Sprinkle pepper powder and serve hot.

The above is the recipe for the first kind of bheja fry, the edible one.

The second kind is where your own brain is the principal ingredient and the chef's apron is adorned by a peculiar specimen - the bheja frier. Seemingly innocent, but disastrously dangerous.

Now there's a third kind which you can watch on the big silver screen. Sagar Bellary's Bheja Fry. A wonderful concoction of everyday ingredients presented in a simplistic but hilarious manner. Everyone gets the joke and the whole hall is continuously roaring with laughter.Not delving into the story, as it needs to be watched to be felt. But a fabulous performance by Vinay Pathak as Bharat Bhushan (an acquaintance of mine has the same name, and the poor soul is going to be harassed big time) is worth the mention. And Ranvir Shorey's exaggerated effort doesn't fit in.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

An anti-outsourcing lobby has taken the battle to Google search and we shouldn't let some manipulative interests on a hate mission to mislead and spread their xenophobic propaganda.

Here's Anthony's post on the issue:

Hi All!!

Search for 'H1B official website' on Google. Some Anti-Outsourcing group has, using SEO and google bombing techniques, made a anti-outsourcing website, the Number one result in the Google Result Page. The said website, [send them back.org] (and please don't link to it), starts with ...

"Are you sick and tired of seeing your country turned into a Third World sewer by immigration? Are you tired of seeing your standard of living drop and our jobs exported to China? Are you tired of armies of H1B workers being imported from India to take what few jobs we have left? Are you tired of having to skip 1 for Spanish and 2 for Chinese? Are you tired of pressing 3 for English and getting a receptionist who barely speaks it?".

This is a kind of hate website, but google will not ban it from its serp, since it is apparetly not spamming. Since google display the results based on an algorithm, it is easy for us, IT workers to beat this website in their own game.

What we can at least do is try to beat this website from at least the number one spot on the Google Search Engine Result Page, with a little SEO. Search Engine Optimisation, for those came in late.

One very basic technique is to link the genuine H1B websites with the anchor text as 'H1B official website' .

Below is a list of the other seach results on google search results page. If you are a blogger, please provide hyperlink to the links below with the anchor text 'H1B official website'

Write a blog post on H1B and link to the above websites, with the anchor text, 'H1B official website'. I suggest that you link to these sites on your home page, on the sidebar or the footer also.It will take only a few minutes..

Please spread the word.

Many of the Indian Blogger are from the IT industry, and I hope it will be pretty easy to unrank this website.

Monday, April 09, 2007

What is the difference between an alphabet and a letter? Many people (including some editors) confuse alphabet for letter. 'Z' is a letter, not an alphabet. It isn't the alphabet Z, it is the letter Z. Alphabet is the complete character set - A to Z (or whatever, according to the script), letters are the elements within.

Here's a primer in the alphabet (with translations in Devanagri/Hindi). Note the classic drawing style, also found in calendar art and early movie posters. Reminds me of my nursery classes. Kids (and even grownups) were as a rule - chubby, reflecting the traditional Indian preferences, until anorexic models filled magazine pages and the boob tube.

When I saw this photo, I didn't. Only when my eyes ventured to the name accompanying the column in the November 1987 issue of what was then India's favourite men's mag - Debonair - that I said "Oh!"

I still see Debonair on a lot of newsstands; therefore I assume that it still sells well, but not as well as it did when we were in school. Now there's the internet for competition.

Now back to the man in question. It is not as tricky as the one on Rahul Dravid. An imaginary beard should reveal the CEO of Inx Media (I'm not sure about the precise designation) and the advisory editorial director of HT Media, Vir Sanghvi.

Sunday, April 08, 2007

With advancing age RK Laxman might be losing his touch, but he has already made a place for himself amongst the greats. The Common Man is one of the most recognisable characters in Indian cartooning history, so much so that he is the brand ambassador of Air Deccan. Cartoonists are an inscrutable lot, sometimes very much like their work, otherwise entirely different.

It is really difficult to keep a track of the news on different websites, this is where news aggregators come in handy and I've been using Google News for quite some time now. Now there's a new India-specific news aggregator which promises something different.

The site has a clean interface, but the layout needs to be worked upon a little and there's already some variety in the topics covered. But they do need to go for a spell-check in some of the sections. And moreover if the site's in beta, it should say that somewhere in the title or some other noticeable place.

Since the people behind the project acknowledge the fact that "the website is amateur in nature because it is the effort of first time developers," I too would like to ask the design gurus on the net to lend them a helping hand. They are also inviting ideas for improvement, so do surely send yours across, even in absence of the beta tag.

PS: If you didn't notice, the StatCounter counter in this blog crossed the landmark 100,000 figure. Now waiting for the first million.

In another activity, fixed the SMPS. Got a 400W Intex for Rs 400. Last time a crook had charged me Rs 700 for the job, therefore this time took matters in my own hand.